A Gently Sloping Path
by madsthenerdygirl
Summary: They were together before they were together – gone on each other before they even realized it.


**Title: A Gently Sloping Path**

**Rating: I'm a dirty, dirty girl who can't keep her mind out of the gutter.**

**Summary: They were together before they were together – gone on each other before they even realized it.**

**Disclaimer: Me? Owning anything? That's a riot.**

**Author's Note: Oops. Another long oneshot. I'm not sorry. This will cover the entire series, showing glimpses into their thoughts and of various episodes. If you ever get lost, message me and I'll send you a list of the episodes I reference. I hope that you enjoy!**

He knew that he was getting a partner, and he knew that they were going to be nothing more than a mole, scurrying back to Skinner to ready the torches and pitchforks. What he didn't know was that it would be a woman, and such an attractive one at that.

If she did that thing with her mouth one more time, he was not going to be held responsible for his actions.

All right – so maybe he played up the "Spooky" bit a little to get at her. She was a spy! What was he supposed to do, just let his life's work vanish?

Of course, trusting someone and being attracted to them are entirely different things. It'd been so long he'd almost forgotten his nasty habit of falling for cold-hearted bitches.

_Cough. _Olivia. _Cough._

How he let himself get so tangled in that woman's web… no matter. He was a sucker, plain and simple.

But he couldn't deny there was something different about this Dana Scully. She was highly intelligent, and definitely observant. She used logic the way most women used lipstick: liberally and with great skill. She didn't demand respect the way most female FBI agents did, with their ultra-feminist views and demands. She simply… took it. She looked at you like you had to earn her respect, not the other way around.

It wasn't until she practically burst into his hotel room, doing a good (but not good enough) job of pretending she wasn't completely freaked out about the bug bites on her back, that he realized he'd been a bit of a jerk.

He was honest with her after that, and never tried to freak her out ever again.

And something else – she listened. Really listened, in a way that not even Diana had done. It was like she was turning his words over in her mind and tucking them away to digest.

He had a feeling that Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully would be surprising him more than once over the course of their time together.

* * *

He was kind of having her on at first, but who could blame him? She was tempted to lash out but it wasn't like it was Agent Mulder's fault she'd gotten this backwater assignment. She wondered who the hell she pissed off to land this gig.

Mulder was intelligent; there was no denying it. His profiling skills were legendary. And there was a definite charisma to him, a kind of magnetism that made people trust and listen to him.

And, yes, there was sex appeal. Not that she was going to act on anything. She was a professional, damn it.

When she had her… well, all right, let's be honest – it was a breakdown. When it happened, and she went to him… there was softness there in his eyes that she hadn't been expecting. It was like a shield had come down from around him, and she was seeing another, deeper layer.

The skin where his hand had touched her burned long after he'd pulled away.

* * *

It was about a month into their partnership that she said it.

"I'd never put myself on the line for anyone but you, Mulder." She said it so matter-of-factly, so seriously, the way she said everything. He felt gratitude rush over him in such a great wave that his breath stuttered. To overcome it, he fell back on his usual methods: flirt shamelessly.

"If there's an iced tea in there, Scully, it might be love."

Scully carefully opened the bag, pulled out the drink, and held it out to him. "Sorry, Mulder." She informed him, her face smooth and her voice deadpan. "It's Diet Coke."

He was a little worried it might have been love anyway.

* * *

Of course she'd heard rumors. Everyone heard rumors about everybody in the Bureau. Skinner would have flayed them all alive if he heard the ones about his separation from his wife.

But she hadn't expected… well, to be honest, she'd hoped that the rumors about Mulder and women weren't true.

Looked like she'd been an idiot.

It didn't stop her from wanting to punch Olivia Greene in the face. Repeatedly. With a blunt weapon.

God, where was this jealousy coming from? She wasn't like this, had never been like this. Not even back in college… well, no sense going there. Point was, she had never gotten this worked up about another woman with her man.

What was she saying? Mulder wasn't even her man.

Scully wondered, and not for the first time, what she'd gotten herself into.

* * *

She was gone.

That fucking bastard took her from him and gave her to those… to those…

Oh _God_.

The months that followed were lost ones, empty ones. He felt hollow. He doubled his intake of sunflower seeds. He couldn't sleep, even more than usual. He felt as though his senses were dulled, the sounds muffled and colors dimmed, like his body couldn't make the full effort.

And then she was back, and an ache sprung up in his chest with all the violence of a gunshot. He could feel something inside of him tugging, reaching out, yearning to be with her.

He was wary – incredibly so. He had no idea what they'd done to her, or why they'd given her back to him. But he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not right now, when she was alive and warm and giving him that slow, sensuous smile, the one that he liked to dream that only he saw.

And she still didn't believe.

It was both frustrating and indescribably adorable.

* * *

It was amazing, the trust that was built between them so quickly. It had only grown over the years to the point that even when he began to delve blindly into the secrets that haunted his life, she jumped into the deep end with him.

She warned him, of course. He couldn't keep being stupid, following every shadow of a clue like a madman.

She warned him…

"It's about how far you'll go. And how far I'll follow you."

It was a vague threat, a reference to shortening patience, but it was also a lie if she ever said one. She'd follow him anywhere.

After four years of this, the thought didn't scare her anymore.

* * *

It was getting worse.

At first he'd had no idea that anything was wrong with her. He was a little busy celebrating the fact that she was actually back in the world of the living to even suspect that something might be off. But then there were little signs… things that Scully mentioned, things concerning their cases…

He tried to confront her on it. He did. But when he wasn't sure what was wrong, he couldn't present the most solid of cases. She shot him down with an anger he had rarely seen from her.

"Not everything is about you, Mulder." She informed him. "It's my life."

That was a shot to the gut. "Yes, but it…"

He trailed off as she tilted her head, her eyebrows rising slightly. What could he say? What could he tell her?

He realized then that he didn't truly have her. She wasn't his to keep.

* * *

He quickly realized that soon, he wouldn't even have her in his life, never mind claim her as his own. She was sick. Sick with cancer, of all things… the disease was so common, with so many mutations, that he – like many people – had almost accepted it as a tragic fact of life. But even then it was something that happened to others, to strangers and neighbors and friends of friends. Now, though, now… now it was stark and grim and unavoidable.

And she wanted to go back to work as if nothing was happening?

He admired her for it – he did, truly. But he also made himself sick worrying about her because of it. What if she caught sick with something else, something on a case, and it complicated her treatment? What if she got a blow to the head from an assailant? Any surgery needed would be immeasurably complicated by the presence of the cancer. And the fact was she'd be physically weaker. What if she couldn't escape from danger in time, too slow to run or get away? What if she died because she didn't have the strength to fight off an enemy? What if they were in the middle of nowhere and she collapsed, with no way to get her to a proper medical facility?

The plague of fears kept him up at night, and he got little to no sleep as it was.

They had to find a cure. He couldn't even entertain the possibility of failure. She was his best friend, his partner, his steadying rock. Oftentimes he felt like she was what made him human, kept him from turning into a conspiracy-driven machine that slept, fed and breathed the X-Files. Without her, just how lost would he be? Just how much of his humanity would he lose, how much objectivity, how much focus would slip?

They had to find a cure.

They had to.

* * *

She didn't know how she was better.

No, nothing suspicious had happened.

No, she didn't need anything.

Mulder, stop being a mother hen…

And hand over the damn notebook.

She didn't want him to read the letter she'd written. It was more of a note, really, just her thoughts as she'd jotted them down. But what thoughts they were…

She was telling him that she loved him, without actually saying the words. That note… that note was goodbye. She couldn't bring herself to put on paper what she couldn't even fully admit to herself, but she had wanted him to know how much he meant to her.

She'd been dying. She had felt her body withering from the inside out, wasting away, the cold seeping in through the cracks. She'd spent so many years being brave and bold with everything except for her heart. That, she'd hidden away. She'd nearly destroyed a family because of it. She'd gotten hurt because of it. And so she'd locked it up tight, until the words couldn't even come out of her mouth.

But she had written them, in her shaky handwriting, her hand weak and uncoordinated from the drugs and the cancer. She had written them out, every emotion, every thought she held for him. It wasn't those three little words but it was close enough that anyone reading the note would know.

She burned it, that night, in her fireplace.

* * *

After Blundht, there was a kind of silent understanding between them. She knew, and he knew, and they knew that the other knew, but neither of them did anything about it.

It's a little hard to deny liking someone when you were about to stick your tongue down his throat. Or, well, the throat of the person you thought was him.

He knew about her, and she knew about him. A truce of cowardice, an agreement to never voice the truth. He might tell himself it was to protect her, and she might tell herself it was to avoid the inevitable degeneration and breakup, but they both knew it was fear.

Good, old fashioned, fear.

Sometimes it was easier to face the monsters.

* * *

Her nose was bleeding. _Her nose was bleeding._ He'd known she was in bad shape, but to see it in evidence like this… He felt helpless, utterly helpless. It was like watching Samantha be taken, only in extreme slow motion, the loss taking months instead of seconds.

And she acted as though it was normal, like a paper cut or taking out the trash. Not pleasant, but something that happens with a certain regularity.

No.

He couldn't… he couldn't stand by and…

Scully couldn't die.

He wouldn't fucking let her.

* * *

It would be difficult to later years to pinpoint the "bad days" in her career. Almost every day is a "bad day" when you're chasing or being chased by strange, unexplainable phenomena, handling government conspiracies, and getting cancer. But there were still some times that definitely stood out.

The conspiracy to disillusion Mulder, for instance.

It hurt her to say it. It hurt her to say that he was a victim, the subject of lies and conspiracies. It felt like she was betraying herself, stabbing herself repeatedly. He'd hate her for this. He'd be hurt and betrayed and bewildered.

God forgive her. God forgive her for this, for saying what she herself wasn't sure she believed. She thought she knew the truth but the strength of Mulder's convictions was so deep, so ingrained… he was a part of her, now, and so a part of her believed. A part of her wanted to believe.

Even though it was a lie, even though she knew for a fact that Mulder was alive and well, it hurt to declare him dead. She couldn't help but feel that it skirted too close to the truth. It scared her, scared her beyond all reason, but she could see him doing it. She felt her voice tremble and steadied it, soldiering on.

Moving onto her issues was easier. She felt a conviction that was lacking when she spoke of her partner. She could feel her strength coming back, resonating in her voice. This was safe ground; this was where she was in control and could handle things and–

Her… her nose… why was… what?

"Scully?" Skinner sounded like her father in that moment. Oh, Dad.

And then the room was pin wheeling into blackness.

* * *

Remission?

Once again, she'd been brought back from the point of no return. Dana Scully clearly had a guardian angel with a flair for dramatic timing.

And once again, he was too damn grateful to be suspicious.

Even lying like that, pale as she was with her eyes looking too big for her face and her hands limp, she was beautiful. The pulse beneath his fingers was steady, and the skin touching his was warm. Her smile was gentle, showing her dimples, and never wanted to leave her side.

It was worth it, it was worth everything, all that he'd gone through, to know that she was okay.

Even if the looks her brother Bill were giving him could have melted a wall of concrete.

* * *

She'd threatened to leave before, but there was a finality to her, a set in her shoulders and a weariness in her eyes, that said she meant business this time.

He made a final pitch.

"After what you saw last night… after what you've seen – you can't just walk away!"

The bees, Scully? The bodies, the train, Krycek and, again, the fucking bees? C'mon, Scully!

"I have. I did." She told him. "It's done."

"Just like that…" He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't.

"I'm contacting the state board Monday to file medical reinstatement papers."

No. No, no, no…

"I need you on this, Scully."

"You don't, Mulder." She informed him. The sharp pain in her voice was a knife pointed at the both of them. "You've never needed me. I've only held you back."

That's what she thought?

"I've got to go."

She was leaving – no, she had left. She was gone, out the door and down the hall, walking out of his life…

He hurried after her, running, trying to catch her before she could slip away.

"You're wrong."

She seemed to be convincing herself as much as him, retreating behind her old friend and protector, logic.

"Why was I assigned to you?" She reminded him. "To debunk your work. To reign you in. To shut you down."

Maybe that's what her assignment was, but it wasn't what she'd done.

"You saved me, Scully."

She gave him that look of hers, the one that made him want to grin and apologize all at once.

Here went nothing.

"As different and frustrating as it's been sometimes, your God damn strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times; have kept me honest and made me whole. I owe you so much, Scully, and you owe me nothing."

She looked… well, it was hard to tell with Scully when she was always hiding her thoughts behind a guarded wall of smooth contemplation, but if he had to guess he'd say she looked pretty damn shocked.

"I don't want to do this without you." He admitted. "I don't know if I can. If I quit now, they win."

The look on her face, so warm and admiring, so open… he'd never seen such a look on her before, never mind directed at him. The kiss she bestowed on his forehead was like so many before and yet… so different… and when she pulled back and saw his face…

This was it. The moment of truth, the point of no return. He'd gone and said it, bared his soul and laid it at her feet. She was his everything.

* * *

He'd said it.

Fox Mulder, Mr. Spooky, Mr. My Work Is Number One, had just told her that without her, he had nothing. His all-important mission was dead in the water without her, and not because of her experience or knowledge but because she made him whole. She made him complete, and human.

Scully swore she could feel her heart crack.

How many times had that organ bled for him? How many times had she stuffed her feelings even deeper down, trying to snuff them out? How many times had she been forced to swallow the threatening tears and pretend she didn't care as much as she did, the way she did?

And now…

He placed his hands on her cheeks, his touch warm and tender. She felt so small compared to him, like a child suddenly needing reassurance. He pulled her to him like a magnet, without force or will but in a natural, graceful state. She could feel his breath tickling her lips and her heart sped up almost painfully quickly. After so long… so many years of overlooking and ignoring and denying and hiding…

She felt a sharp, painful sting, like someone had stabbed her with a needle right at the top of her spine. Scully felt her head snap forwards onto Mulder's shoulder, giving a cry of pain.

"What? What happened?" Mulder's grip tightened, his voice both soothing and concerned.

"I think… Something stung me…" She explained, confused. What the hell…?

She reached back and felt around her collar, seizing upon a small, almost fuzzy creature and pinching it between her fingers, holding it up for Mulder to see.

"It must have stung you." He said, relieved laughter in his voice. He pulled her to him, hugging her tightly. She could feel him trembling slightly and made to laugh at how worried he had seemed when she felt a stabbing, lacerating pain in her sides. It didn't hit once but again and again, like someone was hacking at her ribs with a knife. She raised her head to look up at Mulder's face.

"Mulder, something's wrong." She said, realizing that her vision had gone a bit blurry. She could still make out her partner's look of concern.

"Scully?" He asked, shifting so that he was holding her more gently.

"I have… lacerating pain in my sides…" She tried to explain her symptoms, but her voice was failing her. Everything was spinning all of a sudden, and she felt her knees buckle.

Mulder caught her, lowering her gently onto the floor. He looked about ready to panic, something she'd never seen him do before. She wondered if he'd gotten like this when she'd been abducted.

"I have a funny… taste… in the back of my throat." She whispered, the words laboring on her tongue.

"I think you're in anaphylactic shock." Mulder said, more for himself than for her.

"But… Mulder I'm… not allergic…" She said faintly. Everything was completely blurred together now, and fading fast. Why was her vision going? Why couldn't she even move?

"Just lie still." Mulder instructed.

As if she could do anything else at this stage.

The last thing Scully heard before passing out was Mulder's frantic voice on the phone, informing the paramedics of the situation. As she became completely numb to the outside world, she wished like hell that they'd at least gotten to kiss first.

* * *

He found her. He pulled her out of the depths of a Hell of ice and snow and the slowest of deaths, and he brought her back to the light.

She barely remembered the trip back home, especially the beginning, which was a fever dream of panic and darkness and a strange, twisting world of pipes and chambers and creatures… but that one moment, her first vision upon waking, stood out. Mulder's face, worried and giddy and loving, his arms catching her as she fell, wrapping her up in his coat and cradling her like nothing else existed.

He pulled her out of there, forced her to keep going when she was convinced that she couldn't, carrying her when she couldn't even crawl.

A part of her wanted to tell him she loved him, but a part of her wondered if those words could possibly convey the scope of it all.

* * *

Then there was that time on the ghost ship in the Bermuda Triangle.

He'd kissed the Scully look-alike (perhaps a previous life?) with all the pent-up passion that he'd been holding back the past six years.

Scully was a damn fine kisser. He was surprised he could still walk straight when they pulled apart.

She punched him – with her right hand instead of her left, which he wasn't expecting – and she probably thought he was more than a little crazy but she believed him. And he'd felt her respond to that kiss.

If he'd been lost before, everyone should just leave him for dead right then, because he was a goner.

"Scully?"

If he didn't say it he was going to burst.

"What?" She asked, leaning in, humoring him.

"I love you."

Her answering eye-roll was one for the record books, as was her sigh. He was certain that she thought he was still affected from his ordeal, or possibly joking, otherwise he knew she wouldn't have walked over his feelings like that.

It didn't matter. He'd find a better way to break it to her.

* * *

She was breaking.

Slowly but surely, she was breaking.

Crying in his arms after her heart was nearly torn out… the desire to be acknowledged, to be loved… the way he held her hips as they hit baseballs together…

And now, when she was breaking, was the moment she had to be strong. Because breaking your resolve is one thing; breaking your mind is another. And Mulder's mind was breaking.

"Just hold on." She whispered. "Just hold on."

She rubbed his hand, clutching it, feeling the tears burn her cheeks.

They couldn't both be breaking.

* * *

It was scary how your mind bought in so easily to the simple life. The life of peace and normalcy, without complications or difficult decisions.

It was scary how easily one could accept a lie.

When he reached for her, taking her arm, smiling, he'd expected one of her warm, lovely smiles, the ones that only he saw.

Instead he got anger.

"Traitor. Deserter. Coward."

He didn't understand… she couldn't be angry, not now, not here…

"You're not supposed to die, Mulder – not here. Not in a comfortable bed with the devil outside."

"No, you don't understand. He's taking care of me."

"No, Mulder, he's lulled you to sleep. He's made you trade your true mission for creature comforts."

"There was no mission. There were no aliens."

The look she gave him was scathing. "No aliens." She said, the words coated in acid. "Have you looked outside, Mulder?"

"I can't. I'm… too tired.

"No, Mulder. You must get up. You must get up and fight – especially you. This isn't your place."

She always brought the truth to him. Even if she didn't accept it herself, she helped him.

"Get up, Mulder. Get up and fight the fight."

He called for her, called for her desperately. It hurt; it hurt so much to fight the dream, but he had to. He had to reach her.

The pain was immense, a pain in his head and in his soul, but when he fought through it… she was there. She held him, and got him to safety.

Her voice was like a guiding light, a pathway out of the darkness.

_You've got to get up. I don't know how much time we have. You've got to get up, Mulder. No one can do it but you, Mulder. Mulder, help me. Please, Mulder._

The moment he could speak, he corrected her.

"You help me."

She would always get him to safety. Because even when the world was falling apart, she was his constant. Even when everything was upside down, she was his friend, and she told him the truth.

* * *

Of all the ways they could have had their first kiss, he supposed doing it "as a tradition" to ring in the millennium wasn't too bad. Her lips were soft and sweet, the flavor too vague to be described but addicting all the same.

It was over far too quick for his liking, though.

* * *

"Pack your things and we can get out of here."

She did want to get out of there. She wanted so badly to get away, from her fears and her self-doubts, from the ghost haunting her soul. It wasn't the deed so much as the _why_. Mulder insisted that she was good, because he had the same faith in her that he had in his quest – unshakeable to the point of blindness. But at the moment she wanted that. She needed that, to lean on it like a crutch as she calmed the screaming of her soul.

So when Mulder looked her in the eyes and told her, "Y'know, I wasn't kidding about getting away", she accepted.

It was the best week of her life.

They slept in the same bed – nothing more than sleeping, or perhaps chatting, but she found she couldn't get to sleep without someone else there. She kept waking up in a cold sweat, gasping, running from a monster that she didn't dare name.

And every time he'd press a kiss to her temple and hold her until she slipped back into slumber.

By the end of the week… the nightmares had gone.

* * *

It occurred to Scully that she'd been a bit of a stupid girl when she was younger.

Of course, that didn't mean that the love she hadn't felt at the time was real, and the man she had directed that love towards wasn't a good one, but that didn't change the fact that now she knew what she'd felt hadn't been a deep, abiding love, one that would stand the test of time and strengthen with the ages.

She knew because she had that now.

She'd been far too sleepy to reply, but she'd heard Mulder's little ramble about fate and lives intertwining and possibilities. So when she'd woken up later, alone on the couch, she'd known immediately what to do.

He hadn't been too surprised to feel her crawl into bed with him. They'd spent an entire week sleeping in the same bed after the ordeal with Pfaster. What had surprised him was when she'd kissed him, finally taking what she'd spent six damn years yearning for.

And God, it was good. Good enough to do three times over.

She'd always known that for all his calm, unfazed demeanor that Mulder was more sensitive than anyone else she'd ever come across. He felt things deeply and profoundly, and his sympathy and compassion for those he met in the course of his work was simply astounding. Perhaps it was why he was such a good profiler – he could understand people and see things from their perspective.

But although she knew that Mulder had deep emotions, she hadn't expected him to express them in such a way.

He held her. Truly _held_ her, like he was scared she'd leave or vanish into thin air. He pressed kisses into her skin like he was worried each one would be his last, caressing her with such reverence that she wanted to cry. Maybe she did cry. She couldn't be sure.

And he moved so fluidly, his rhythm smooth and deep, and she felt as though her body were made to move along with his, like she was made to take him, to be filled by him. The moon coming through the window lit up half of his face, leaving his other half in shadow, and she felt like it was such an apt physical metaphor that God must be laughing at her.

She didn't know how he knew where to touch her, how to touch her, but she was thanking every saint in the Catholic Church that he did because _good fucking Lord_…

And when it was all over, he whispered words into the skin of her shoulder, murmuring _I love you_ and _beautiful_ and _angel_ in such a constant stream that she wondered if it was partly a subconscious action.

That didn't stop her from reveling in them, letting them soak into her skin like ink from a tattoo, washing over her and pulling her under into sleep.

In the morning, she didn't have the heart to wake him. He looked so peaceful and serene, the lines of his face smoothed out in slumber. She knew that he was an insomniac, often relying upon television to lull him into a fitful sleep. She couldn't snatch him from such a restful state of mind. He needed it.

She found a small pad of paper in the drawer of the nightstand, various notes and doodles scribbled over the pages. She ripped off a clean page and jotted down a quick note:

_Didn't want to wake you; I'll call you when the meeting's over._

She hesitated, and then added:

_Love, Dana_

She was unsure about the name – he almost always called her Scully, even during times of intimacy or privacy. But she wanted him to know that this wasn't a one-time deal for her. It had taken her a while to work up the bravery but she was ready. She was in with both feet.

As she left the note on the nightstand and dressed in the bathroom, she could only pray that he felt the same way.

* * *

He was lounging in front of the door that led to their office as she walked down the hall. When she saw him, she was rewarded with his lazily cocky grin.

"Scully?"

"Hmm?"

He slid his hand around the back of her neck, kissing her slowly. She placed her hands on his shoulders, pressing herself up against him. She let him map out the inside of her mouth until she felt heat pool between her thighs, pulling away before she lost control and took him on his desk.

"Just wanted to make sure last night was real, I guess." He explained quietly.

She sighed, letting him kiss her forehead. "It better be, because I expect a repeat performance."

He chuckled, and she found herself smiling back.

* * *

Hollywood was amazing.

They went out to dinner, and danced on the beach at one a.m.

Actually, it wasn't the setting they were in so much as the fact that it was the first vacation they'd ever had; the first time to relax together that wasn't a stolen moment or covered by a cloud of something gloomy.

They made love in the massive bathtub in her room. Mulder made sure to order champagne, and they drank the entire bottle, sloshing water over the sides of the tub. He had fun whispering dirty things in her ear, making her laugh and smack him in the chest even as she wrapped her legs around him. He was pretty sure there was an aphrodisiac in her skin, because every time he licked and suckled at it he drove himself just as crazy as he drove her.

It wasn't until after they'd climbed out, stumbling and giggling like they were teenagers, that he realized they hadn't used a condom.

He decided to wait and tell her in the morning, when they were sober. Scully would be much more levelheaded then, and besides – she was standing on tiptoes to nibble on his ear and she was running the tip of a finger up and down his navel. He was not about to stop that for anything.

Well… except maybe to scoop her up and carry her over to the humongous bed (how many pillows did a person need, anyway). He loved their height difference, because it allowed her to fit snugly inside of his arms whenever he carried her, her head resting in the crook of his neck.

And apparently Drunk Scully was far more vocal about things, because she was quite happy to inform him about just how good this or that thing was. Turned out his fingers were "magic", his nose was really large but it was okay because she thought it was cute, and her breasts were more sensitive than she'd previously let on.

He made a mental note to get her champagne more often.

* * *

He didn't want to leave her.

They were still working things out, suddenly shy with one another, knowing that this new step was precious and not one to be trodden on lightly. He didn't want to go, but he had to. He could feel the chapter closing, the mission and questions that had been dominating his life coming to an end. The truth was out there, and it was within his grasp.

He was going to close it. Once he'd done that, he could devote himself wholly to her. He could move finally move on and seize what he wanted with both hands, what he'd been holding at arm's length for the past seven years.

But he still didn't want to leave her.

* * *

She believed.

It wasn't a question of wanting – she just… did. How could she not, when Mulder was gone? It was like a dam had broken with her loss and suddenly, it was all irrevocable scripture. It was gospel. It was truth.

How could Doggett suggest that she didn't know her partner? How dare he? She knew Mulder better than anyone else, must as Mulder knew her better than anyone else did. In the end, they had no one but each other.

Mulder had saved her so many times. He'd dragged her from the pits of Hell and steadied her course no matter how the waves buffeted her. And just when they'd been moving forward, just when they'd taken those steps towards what they both wanted… He had been taken from her.

She was going to get him back. He had saved her. Now she had to save him.

* * *

On the day they found Agent Fox Mulder's body, John Doggett watched Scully die.

It was like she'd been fending off a terminal illness all these months and finally her body just gave out. That light, so strong and sure, had faded. Her mouth, always set and stern, trembled. And for the first time in however long Doggett had known her, Scully lost it.

She screamed to the heavens, her fists shaking, tears streaming down her face. It took both him and Skinner to get her to stop and sit down, and even then it was because they'd pulled the _think of the baby_ card.

Doggett could hardly believe it. This woman had mentored him, shown him that the X-Files was not a joke, a punishment, but a calling as true as any other in the FBI. She'd pounded it into his head, time and time again, the truths that she had discovered in her time with Mulder. And she'd always insisted that Agent Mulder was coming back.

He'd suspected but never known for a certainty until that night, when he saw the light in her eyes fade away. He didn't need Skinner's quiet lecture later on, but it was good confirmation.

From then on, Doggett worked with a ghost.

She walked the earth, and spoke, and did her job, but she did not live. She stared into nothing, her eyes dull, and she never looked like she'd gotten enough sleep. He never saw her eat. She certainly didn't smile. The only person who could get any kind of reaction out of her was Skinner, and that reaction was usually anger.

Doggett didn't like to think about how she was breaking the former A.D.'s heart. The guy clearly loved her like a daughter or a little sister, and here she was, her body on the earth but her soul far, far away.

"Did anybody miss me?"

Scully couldn't help it – she burst into tears.

From his post standing guard outside the room, John Doggett smiled.

On February 25, 2001, Dana Scully died.

On April 1, 2001, she was reborn.

* * *

The year that Mulder had been abducted still ranked as the worst year of her life, but the year following had come a close second.

She'd had to give up her son. The only contact she'd had with Mulder was through sporadic emails. And no matter how much he stressed his love for her, there was no true replacement for hearing him say those words out loud, to feel them pressed into the skin of her body.

And then he'd gone and fucking gotten himself arrested.

She didn't really blame him, but she had done a fair amount of name-calling in Skinner's office while the Skinman himself looked on with both amusement and weariness.

"You sound like my mother after my dad did the grocery shopping." He informed her.

When she gave him her death glare, the one that sent Doggett running like a kicked puppy, Skinner had just laughed.

Asshole.

But her anger had quickly faded, replaced by a gnawing fear. What if they couldn't get him out? What if he didn't get a proper trial? What if she never saw him again?

She couldn't lose him again. She'd already died inside once, and she wasn't going to go through that a second time. If he was going, he'd be taking her with him whether he liked it or not.

When she finally got to see him… walking towards her with that quietly intense look on his face… her knees buckled. If he hadn't grabbed her and held her against him she was pretty sure she'd have fallen to the floor.

He placed his hands on either side of her head like he always did, and the gesture was just so _Mulder_ that she felt tears prick her eyes. He kissed her like there was nothing else happening, nothing else in existence, stealing her breath and her fears and her doubts and swallowing them, taking them all away, wiping them out of her mind with each swipe of his tongue. He wrapped her up in his arms, securing her, anchoring her. She bumped their noses together, smiling as their lips brushed again. She hugged him with all of her strength, wishing that she could just open her eyes and they'd be somewhere else, somewhere far away. Somewhere safe. Preferably with a large bed that had durable springs.

"Dana." He breathed, her name whisper-soft. He rocked her, keeping her in the safe little bubble for just one more moment.

Skinner politely stared at a spot on the floor.

* * *

After all that they'd been through, and all that was still to come, you'd think they'd be discussing the dangers ahead.

But they weren't.

They were discussing themselves.

That was what it always boiled down to, wasn't it? Him and her, the two of them, together?

It started the way it always did: with Scully calling him out on his bullshit.

"You don't believe that."

"I believe that I sat in a motel room like this with you when we first met and I tried to convince you of the truth. I've succeeded in that but… in every other way…"

He looked at her – really looked at her – for the first time since they'd escaped.

"I've failed."

She didn't quite smile, but her face softened.

"You don't believe that, either."

He hummed noncommittally. "I've been chasing after monsters with a butterfly net. You heard the man; the date's set. I can't change that."

"You wouldn't tell me." She informed him. "Not because you were afraid or broken… but because you didn't want to accept defeat."

"Well, I was afraid of what knowing would do to you."

She'd been through so much, and most of it was because of him. He'd dragged her into everything, into the world of shadows and facts that were half-true at best, a world of darkness and weary despair.

"I was afraid that it would crush your spirit."

Scully – his brave, amazing beauty – surprised him once again. And yet, he knew he shouldn't have been surprised, because it was so very much who she was.

"Why would I accept defeat? Why would I accept it, if you won't? Mulder, you say that you've failed, but you only fail if you give up. And I know you. You can't give up. It's what I saw in you when we first met. It's what made me follow you. Why I'd do it all again."

"And look what it's gotten you." He said dully.

"And what has it gotten you? Not your sister. Nothing that you've set out for. But you won't give up, even now."

She reached out to him, a lifeline in a world of swirling, drowning dark, taking his hand and holding it firmly.

"You've always said that you want to believe." She said, softly. "But believe in what, Mulder? If this is the truth that you've been looking for then what is left to believe in?"

He hadn't even thought about that before, but the moment she asked the question, he knew the answer. He gripped her hand in return, feeling her feed him strength. His touchstone, his friend, his lover; who always told him the truth.

And, sometimes, drew the truth out of his very soul.

"I want to believe that the dead are not lost to us. That they speak to us as part of something greater than us – greater than any alien force. And if you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that if we listen to what's speaking, it can give us the power to save ourselves."

Scully smiled, and it was everything mixed into one. Her teasing smile, her sultry smile; the warm, wide one that he knew for a fact she only gave to him.

"Then we believe in the same thing." She informed him.

She leaned in ever so slightly, and her cross caught the light. He'd seen it on her every day, from the first day that he'd met her, and while she was lost to him he'd carried it around in his pocket. He treasured it because it was a part of her, not for what it represented. But now, as he reached up to touch it with his fingertips, he thought that it might mean more to him now. He belonged to no church and worshipped no god, but in the end, the two of them believed the same thing.

Scully watched him intently, searching his face. When their eyes met, her smile grew. She knew that look on his face. It was the one she'd seen every day, especially in the beginning, as he'd tried so hard to convince her of what she refused to see.

He believed.

Mulder ran his thumb over her lips, caressing her, marveling at her. She'd restored him, all in the space of a few minutes. His Lionheart, his warrior, fighting through any and everything until she freed him.

He got up off the floor, crawling into bed next to her. They were still wearing clothes – he'd have to take care of that later. For now, he wrapped himself around her, hooking a leg up so that they were holding each other close. They held on tight, because they had holes inside that only the other one could fill, an emptiness that could only be taken away by the person in their arms. And while each would argue that they were the broken one, the weaker link, the truth was that they both needed saving in their own ways. They'd each caved, each died and been resurrected, lost themselves and been found.

And yet… like planets caught in each other's orbit, the rhythm of the tides or the migrating sparrows, they always found a way back to each other. They'd always returned, time after time, to the profound truth of _them_.

"Maybe there's hope."

**I think I managed to get all of my X-Files feels out of my system – for now. The truth is out there… and the truth is that I want reviews. Ha, ha. Seriously, though, thanks for reading!**


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